IN 1893, H. C. Wahlberg, a businessman in Seattle, saw great
economic possibilities in Alaska. It should, he thought, become
to the Pacific Coast and to America what the Lofoten Islands
and Finnmark were to Norway, and he urged the founding of
a Norwegian or Scandinavian colony in the territory. He and
others who expressed similar views in the early 1890s and
spoke of another "Land of the Midnight Sun" or a
"New Norway" were thinking of the rich harvest of
the sea and a mixed economy of fishing, farming, and logging
in southeastern Alaska. At a much later date, in 1944, C.
L. Andrews, in a chapter titled "The Alaska of the Future,"
maintained that the territory "is the Greater Scandinavia,''
with vastly more resources than Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and
Finland combined, but with only a tiny population. {1}

In dozens of letters written by Norwegians and Norwegian
Americans in the late 1890s and the early 1900s the expressions
"New Norway" and "New Scandinavia'' appear
as naturally, if not as frequently, as comments about weather,
the sea, mountains, forests, and tundra. Unlike John Scudder
McLain, who visited Alaska in 1903 with a party from the Senate
committee [131] on territories, the Norwegian writers say
very little about agricultural possibilities in the Far North,
despite the fact that they were fully aware of similarities
between their homeland and Alaska. {2}

It was the discovery of gold in the Klondike and Alaska that
brought the north country into the full consciousness of the
Norwegians and their Scandinavian cousins, not the views of
farsighted men considering the total economy of Alaska. The
lure of gold in the many rivers and creeks of the territory
caused an increasing number of them to travel northward, and
the rich findings in the Cape Nome area greatly stimulated
the process and gave a strikingly Scandinavian coloring to
the Alaska story.

If the gold fields near Nome were to become the magnet drawing
argonauts of varied origin to Alaska, their discovery was
the result of a quite different story, in which motivations
were other than the search for the golden fleece. This story
deals with the introduction of domestic reindeer into Alaska
and is inseparably woven into the tale of greed and scandal
that followed.

I

In 1884, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who had served as a Presbyterian
home missionary in Wisconsin and Minnesota and later in the
Rocky Mountain area, sailed to Alaska as superintendent of
missions in that territory. A year later he was also appointed
federal superintendent of education for Alaska, and was charged
with the responsibility of establishing a free school system.
To this task he devoted the next two decades; in addition,
he assisted in creating mail routes, aided in organizing the
government of the territory, and was active in political life
as leader of the so-called "missionary party." {3}

During his travels in the area of the Bering Sea, Jackson
observed that the wholesale slaughter by whites of [132] whales,
walrus, even caribou and deer -- together with irresponsible
fishing -- was rapidly destroying the very basis of life for
the Eskimo. He visited native villages where the people were
dying of hunger, and gradually came to the conclusion that
there could be little hope for a school system until the Eskimo
had the essentials for a normal existence. After careful study
of the situation, he came to the further conclusion that the
introduction of domestic reindeer would be the best solution
to the problem of providing food, clothing, and necessary
tools in the future.

Jackson secured the first few reindeer from the Chukchi (Chuckchees),
the herders of eastern Siberia, with funds first raised by
private subscription in the American East and later appropriated
by Congress. The task of introducing and caring for the animals
was given to the Office of Education in the Department of
the Interior. This task was not easy, as events soon revealed
that adequate buildings and corrals had to be provided and
grazing land surveyed in an area extending Bristol Bay to
Point Barrow. Most important, experienced herders had to be
found to train the Eskimo in the reindeer culture. {4}

Vast areas of land in western and northern Alaska were covered
with moss, the chief reindeer food, and the climate there
was found to be generally milder than in Siberia. The supply
of animals across the Bering Strait was adequate. Obtaining
the first reindeer, however, proved to be difficult in the
extreme. Jackson and Captain J. Healy, who represented the
government in the revenue cutter Bear, decided to place a
few animals on one of the Aleutian Islands as an experiment.
The Chukchi herdsmen, who were willing enough to exchange
reindeer meat for inexpensive goods, were afraid to sell their
animals on the hoof; their witch doctors (shamen) had taught
them that, if they did, the [133] spirits would cause the
death of their herds and untold suffering for the herdsmen.
Captain Healy was able to overcome the fears of the Siberians
only after promising to feed them if such a calamity indeed
occurred. Sixteen deer were bought in 1890. They thrived in
Alaska, and in 1892 seventeen animals were brought to Teller
on Port Clarence Bay in the Seward Peninsula, some sixty miles
southeast of Cape Prince of Wales. A station was started there,
and more deer were imported from about a hundred miles away.
By 1902 a total of 1,280 had been brought in, all from Siberia.
From these came all or almost all of the 350,000 reindeer
estimated to be in Alaska in the 1920s. {5}

It was much more difficult to secure experienced herdsmen
capable of training the Eskimo in the care of reindeer. The
Chukchi, who had been employed for the first two years of
the experiment, proved to be unsatisfactory, as the Eskimo
regarded them as socially and culturally inferior to themselves
and charged that they were cruel to the animals.

Readers of Norwegian-American newspapers saw, late in 1893,
a story inspired by Sheldon Jackson. It stated that the government
was seeking in the States and Canada men with practical experience
with domestic reindeer. If readers knew of Finns or Lapps
accustomed to their care and willing to go to Alaska, they
should get in touch with Jackson at the Office of Education.
None, it turned out, could be found in North America. {6}

What happened to solve the problem was explained in 1895
by William A. Kjellman (Kjellmann) of Stoughton, Wisconsin,
who also took the opportunity to correct misunderstandings
about the fate of the Siberian reindeer in Alaska. They had
not been slaughtered, as some newspapers had reported, and
indeed had increased in number. In 1893, he said, the government
[134] had imported 127 deer, together with four Siberian herders.
Miner W. Bruce, who had been superintendent of the project,
was replaced by W. T. Lapp. The failure of the Chukchi as
instructors quickly caused the government to bring Lapps from
Norway to take their place.

Kjellman, who was chosen to hire the Lapps and accompany
them to Alaska, was born and raised in Finnmark, northern
Norway, near the region occupied by the Lapps. He had learned
their language as a boy and later, employed by a wholesale
firm in Hammerfest, had bought reindeer meat and skins from
the Lapps and sent these to England and Germany. Leaving for
Finnmark in February, 1894, he proceeded to Kautokeino, where
he hired seven Lapps, whose families accompanied them to Alaska.
An additional 120 reindeer were imported from Siberia the
same year, bringing the total to 418. Kjellman was soon forced
by illness in his family to leave the Teller station, where
he had been serving as superintendent, and to return to Wisconsin
in August, 1894.

The government was fully satisfied with the new arrangement,
especially after observing the manner in which the Lapps and
the Norwegians who had accompanied them began the care of
the reindeer, which soon increased in number to about 710
and were divided into three herds. Kjellman thought it would
be of interest to many if Skandinaven of Chicago, the leading
Norwegian-language newspaper in America, would follow the
reindeer story in Alaska, especially now that it had become
largely a Norwegian project, with Norwegian directors as well
as Lapp herders. The acting superintendent in 1895 was J.
C. Widsted, who had Norwegian assistants. In addition, there
was also a Norwegian-American missionary and teacher at the
Teller station, Pastor T. T. Brevig from Hudson, Wisconsin,
a native of Norway. {7} [135]

The Lapps, who unlike the Chukchi in Siberia had been Christianized
as well as partially Europeanized, had requested as a condition
of their leaving Norway a Lutheran minister as well as Norwegian
supervisors in Alaska. The American government turned to the
Norwegian Synod (Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America). In 1894, through the offices of Rasmus B. Anderson
in Madison, Wisconsin, it inquired of the Reverend H. A. Preus,
president of the Synod, whether he could provide a pastor
to serve the Lapps and their Norwegian associates. Such a
person would also be a teacher in a government school for
native and other children, and would have the privilege of
preaching the gospel to the Eskimo. Preus asked Brevig, who
had taught in public schools in Minnesota, if he and his wife
would serve in the dual role as teachers and missionaries
at Teller.

Accepting, Brevig met and joined Kjellman and the Lapp party
in Madison in May, 1894. A company of sixteen Lapps, Kjellman
with his wife, a child, and his father, Brevig and his wife
and one child, they proceeded to San Francisco by way of St.
Paul, where they met Governor Knute Nelson -- the "King
of Minnesota." There and all along the train route to
Seattle and San Francisco, the Lapps attracted interested
crowds. On June 7, the party left by ship for Alaska and arrived
at the Teller station on August 1. Four days later, Brevig
held religious services in what was little better than a hut,
one of several buildings the government had constructed as
the Teller Reindeer Station. The buildings, 20 by 60 feet
in size, with 8-foot studs, were, as Brevig remarked, better
suited for California than for Alaska and were in great need
of repair. The structure used for the school also provided
an apartment in its east end for the Brevigs and another in
its west end for the Kjellmans. To keep out the wind, they
lined the interior with cotton cloth over which they painted.
[136]

On September 1, Brevig began teaching the Eskimo children,
who numbered fifty the first day. The children learned the
English words for objects and the instructor learned the corresponding
Eskimo words. The task became almost impossibly difficult
when the teacher turned to concepts, as abstractions such
as numbers proved to be little more than puzzles to the pupils.
The language problem was also complicated in religious services.
Brevig preached every Sunday morning in Norwegian for the
Lapps and the Norwegians, then in the afternoon in English
for the Americans and the natives. At the afternoon service
a young Eskimo, who was from a mission station and was learning
to be a herder, served as interpreter for his people. {8}

Pastor Brevig's teaching-preaching mission at Teller is of
absorbing interest in itself and should be studied with care.
But his role in this study is primarily as a source of information
for the reindeer and gold-strike saga in the Seward Peninsula.
From 1897 to 1917, he served as official manager of the herds
near Port Clarence. He received the animals imported from
Siberia and dispatched herds to the north and south. He was
also the first postmaster at the town later named Teller.{9}

On December 14-15, 1896, Brevig could report that the reindeer
were doing well, and that Kjellman and two Lapps, Per Rist
and Mikkel Nækkilæ (Nakkila, Nakkeli), were just
setting out on a long journey to examine stretches of land,
both nearby and at Cook's Inlet, considered suitable for raising
deer. If their report was favorable, there was thought of
creating a Lapp colony at the most convenient location and
expanding reindeer production -- thus far largely an experiment
-- into an industry. {10}

Two months later, Kjellman wrote to Rasmus B. Anderson, editor
of Amerika, from the Bethel Mission [137] station on the Kuskokwim
River, explaining that he was looking for a place to which
the main reindeer station could be moved. He and his Lapp
associates, traveling with deer, had already covered a distance
of 950 miles and were as far south as they planned to go.
They would now set out, by a different and for longer route,
up the Yukon River to Nulato; they would go from there to
Norton Bay and home, hoping to arrive in Teller by April 11,
after completing a record trip of 2,000 miles without changing
reindeer.

They had seen a vast area of wild land and experienced considerable
hardship. They had slept in a sailcloth tent in temperatures
reaching -75 degrees Fahrenheit, and had encountered a storm
so severe that neither they nor their animals could stand.
The men had lain flat on the ground for sixteen hours, holding
on to one another lest they be blown away. Such days were
not uncommon in the mountainous areas. The men had been in
places where no white man had ever set foot. Kjellman thought
the reindeer industry had a great future, that much had been
accomplished already with it, and that Congress should be
more generous in appropriating funds. Reindeer were the only
adequate means of transportation in Alaska, which was no longer
an "icebox" but a "goldbox" that only
the deer could open. {11}

The contract negotiated with the Lapps had stipulated that
a physician should go to the reindeer station at Port Clarence,
where his services would be available to them and to others
at Teller. Dr. Albert N. Kittilsen (Kittleson), of Norwegian
descent and familiar with the language of the Lapps, had been
educated at the University of Wisconsin and the Rush Medical
College in Chicago and lived in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, at
the time of his appointment to the station. He had traveled
to Alaska in the spring of 1896. At Port Clarence he also
[138] served as assistant superintendent. When the main reindeer
station was moved to Unalakleet in December of the next year,
he went along and was there when gold was discovered nearby.

A letter written by Kittilsen a year before his transfer
gives some idea of the experiences of a pioneer doctor in
northwestern Alaska. His contract permitted him a limited
private practice. "I am now," he wrote in December,
"more than 200 miles from Port Clarence to call on a
sick white child. A Lapp and I made the trip in five days
with reindeer. We travel without tent or stove, hoping to
arrive each evening at an Eskimo village and to sleep in a
house; but one night we had to spend in the snow. This, however,
did us no harm, as we are prepared for anything. We have sleeping
bags made of reindeer skins; with them one can be warm anywhere.

"It is pleasant to travel with deer; on level surfaces
they are much faster than horses, and they go through where
it is so uneven that a horse wouldn't think of making it."
His letter, he explained, would have to travel 2,000 miles
by sled before it could reach a steamer. As for cold, the
worst he had experienced was only -49 degrees, and this was
moderate for one dressed in deerskin from top to toe. He was
traveling with two beautiful reindeer that had an unfortunate
habit of running away. "Last year they did this three
times. So far they have not got out of my control, although
they have been able to smash two sleds for me." {12}

On June 22, 1897, Brevig had written in some detail about
conditions at Port Clarence, and had informed readers of the
Norwegian-American press about the decision to establish the
Lapp colony and major reindeer station twelve miles from the
mouth of the Unalakleet River, where there was an Eskimo village
and a Swedish mission named for the river. There were, as
he wrote, four reindeer herds in Alaska, with about 1,450
[139] animals. Some 425 calves had been born during the year,
140 at Port Clarence and 115 at Cape Prince of Wales; sickness,
misfortune, and the butcher's knife had taken about 100. {13}

Brevig reported in August of the same year that the "Wisconsin
people" had already left his station, at least temporarily.
Kjellman was with Sheldon Jackson up the Yukon River, and
Dr. Kittilsen had just gone down to Unalakleet and St. Michael
with supplies from the Port Clarence station. It was not certain
that he would return, as the gold mines down there had a magnetic
attraction for all who heard the rosy reports about them.
Brevig was now alone with the Lapps and the Eskimo. He enclosed
a copy of the July issue of what he called the most northwestern
American newspaper, the Eskimo Bulletin. It had been written
and printed solely by the Eskimo herders under W. T. Lapp,
who was then in charge of the mission herd. {14}

Skandinaven carried a story dated October 20, 1897, from
Seattle, reporting grim news from Sheldon Jackson. The missionary
stated that half of the people at Dawson City had left the
Klondike, and that the only way to avoid hunger there among
Americans was for the government to set up reindeer stations
throughout the Yukon Valley. The deer were necessary, not
only for bringing food to the needy on claims as far as 150
miles from the Yukon, but also for bringing out the mineral
wealth. Kjellman was now on his way to Finnmark to bring back
more Lapp drivers to replace those who were returning to Norway
with him after having fulfilled their three-year contracts.
About fifteen Eskimo now knew how to herd reindeer, and by
the following fall some 300 animals would have been trained
for driving. According to Jackson, "If the government
won't use them, they can be sold. We will receive $50 per
head for them when hunger stalks the door, as it will next
year [140] and always in the Yukon Valley. Steamers cannot
solve the problem of food supplies." {15}

The next month, Washington Posten noted that the revenue
cutter Bear had arrived in Seattle. Aboard were some of the
Lapps who were returning to their homeland. The climate in
Alaska, they said, was much colder than in Norway, requiring
two deerskin coats (frakke) instead of one as in Finnmark.
The reindeer in Alaska were doing well but required more herders,
who would earn $300 a year and their keep. {16}

Kjellman passed through Madison, Wisconsin, en route to Norway,
accompanied by a dozen Lapps and a few Eskimo who were going
to be educated at the government's Carlisle Indian School
in Pennsylvania. He said, when interviewed, that the main
reindeer station definitely would be moved to within forty-five
miles of St. Michael, and thus much closer to the rest of
the world. The new site, chosen by Kjellman as general superintendent
of the reindeer project in Alaska, would also have better
harbor facilities and other advantages over Port Clarence.
He informed Amerika og Norden that he had visited the Klondike
gold fields during the summer and thought it unlikely that
miners there would be successful. He would return to Alaska
to continue his work of instructing the Eskimo in the reindeer
culture. {17}

Kjellman and his company spent a couple of weeks in Chicago,
where he was interviewed at great length in their hotel. Skandinaven's
reporter described him as a tall, strongly-built man of about
forty, with black hair and a full beard. The Lapps were dressed
in the same skin and wool garments they wore in Norway. Kjellman
recounted the whole sad story of why the reindeer had been
introduced into Alaska, and added that in recent years not
one whale had been seen in the Bering Sea. No less than 172
persons, he said, mostly Norwegians, [141] had offered their
services to Sheldon Jackson in bringing Lapps from Norway
and supervising the reindeer project, some of them specifying
that they would bring Lapp herding dogs as well. Kjellman,
who received the appointment and brought the Lapps with their
dogs in 1894, had found 151 reindeer at Teller. In the fall
of' 1897, there were 1,568 animals in the territory, divided
among five stations: Teller, Cape Prince of Wales, the most
western American point, Cape Nome, Golovnin Bay, and Eaton.
These reindeer belonged to 500 Eskimo who had been taught
to use the animals for transport, food, and clothing. In addition,
there were another 500 Eskimo who, directly or indirectly,
earned their living from the government's activity.

When Kjellman first went to Alaska, he remarked, the Eskimo
were suspicious of the project, believing that whites would
gain whatever benefits might ensue, as they had done in mining,
whaling and sealing, and the canning of fish. They were won
over only when it was made clear to them that all gains would
be theirs. "Look here," Kjellman and others had
said to the Eskimo, "you have a herd of 100 deer that
we will give to a group of three families for a period of
five years. You must not sell, slaughter, or lose them, but
train them for transport as we do, and after the five years
give us back 100 deer. The increase in the herd is your own
property." Kjellman continued: "And we told them
we believed they would become owners of 500 animals in these
years, which would give them an adequate start in supporting
themselves and their children for the rest of their lives.
The project has been so successful in three years that the
original units of 100 deer have increased to 368, which makes
the owners . . . at least moderately well-off and independent.
They are regarded by their own people as rich and are called
umeliks or chieftains."

Kjellman added: "We gather from the various villages
[142] young Eskimo who undergo a three-year learning period
at one of the stations. During this time the government provides
them with food, lodging, and clothes. If some of them at the
end of the three years are found to be ready to care for a
herd of reindeer, they are sent out with a number sufficiently
large to begin sustaining them, their families, and others."
The number of animals given them was determined by the size
of their families as well as the number of learners in the
group sent out. When the superintendent determined that three
of them were ready to care for a herd and to work together,
he gave them 100 reindeer. If he found only two who were willing
to work together and were capable, he gave them 75, 80, or
perhaps 100, depending on the size of their families. If a
learner proved to be unprepared for the task of herding, he
was given another year of training. If, after four years,
he was still unqualified, he was given a share in a herd under
the control of another native.

"As early as the summer of 1895," Kjellman said,
"the Eskimo had become so interested in the project that
we couldn't accept half of the applications we got from all
corners of the country . . . as the government's appropriation
for the operation of the school was too small for so many
students. It became necessary, then, to cooperate with the
various mission societies that are working in Alaska."
A herd of 100 reindeer, accompanied by a Lapp, would be lent
to a mission for a five-year period, with the understanding
that the Eskimo in the mission would train under the Lapp,
that the society would clothe and feed the natives, and that
part of the herd's increase in five years would become the
property of the mission and part would go to the Eskimo. "Now
five times as many Eskimo are being trained as herders than
would have been possible if the government were alone in the
program." The mission societies were required to [143]
report on their activities, and the superintendent had the
power to recall the original number of reindeer lent out if
he thought there was danger of losses caused by neglect. There
had been no need to enforce this regulation, however, as the
relationship with the missions had been one of full cooperation
and success. The societies the superintendent had worked with
were the American Mission Association, the Swedish Evangelical
Mission Association, and the Episcopalian Mission.

The government was also supporting fifty-four Eskimo directly
with food, lodging, and clothes. These were the students'
wives, families, and other relatives who were not able to
support themselves. "As the young men we are training
will be the future leaders of the reindeer industry,"
Kjellman explained, "we are careful to choose the best,
most trustworthy, and strongest among the Eskimo. To do this,
we must often support their elderly parents and other relatives
who previously had depended on them for their daily bread."
Such persons normally contributed to the station the products
of their hunting and fishing.

Twelve of the Lapps who had gone to Alaska in 1894 and whose
contracts had expired were returning to Norway with him, but
had not yet decided whether to renew their contracts. It was
possible, Kjellman said, that he might bring back to Alaska
as many as 100 families. In general, the Lapps had liked the
territory, although they had found the winter climate more
trying than in the birch forests of northern Norway. In order
to secure moss for the deer, they had been compelled to stay
in the western part of Alaska that stretches out into the
Bering Strait. On its treeless heights they were exposed to
winter-long and ice-cold northwestern winds. At times, even
in their deerskin clothing, they were unable to leave their
houses. The reindeer, however, did well even in the cold.
The stretches of land in the interior, [144] with their pristine
forests and extended valleys, had a much milder winter climate,
but in summer were extremely warm, and people there complained
about the mosquitoes. {18}

The reindeer story took a new and exciting turn late in 1897,
with further reports of threatened hunger among the miners
in the Yukon. Nordvesten, for example, carried a story from
New York to the effect that 1,000 animals might be imported
from Norway. Kjellman went to Washington to receive instructions
in the event that Congress approved the plan to acquire these
reindeer. From Røros, via Aftenposten in Kristiania,
came the news that Kjellman had arrived in Finnmark on a much
larger undertaking than the one of 1894. Horses had failed
in their effort to bring supplies into the Yukon. Kjellman
hoped to take back with him not only 1,000 deer, but 100 Lapps
for a new colony in Alaska. He had said it would be relatively
easy to buy the deer at $10 a head in Nordland and Finnmark,
but moss in quantity sufficient to feed the animals during
the journey presented a real problem in winter.

Kjellman, in Norway, explained that two transport ships,
each of 250 tons, had brought food to the mining districts
in the Yukon. Despite the great care that was being taken
in distributing the food, with 200 Canadian mounted police
rationing it, the supply could not last beyond the beginning
of April. If the rivers were not open before July, enabling
steamers to go in with new provisions, the mining population
of from 6,000 to 8,000 would suffer real want unless food
could be transported overland in one way or another. Of this
fact the government was fully aware, and the three states
of Oregon, California, and Washington had volunteered to contribute
the necessary provisions free of charge if a means of transportation
could be found. Hence the need for the reindeer, Kjellman
said. He would be able to take back [145] 100 pounds of food
for each animal. Asked how many Norwegians were in the Klondike,
he answered that there were between 400 and 500. {19}

Kjellman presumably had some difficulty in recruiting Lapps.
According to one Norwegian newspaper, the herders who returned
to Kautokeino had lodged complaints. They had been well paid,
they said, each adult male receiving by contract 100 kroner
(about $20) per month in Alaska, and they had been given free
board and clothing. All had gone well on the Thingvalla ship
Island, and, on arriving at Port Clarence in 1894, some of
the Lapps had set about building houses and caring for the
reindeer. Others had fished for salmon. Until the houses were
completed, they had been forced to live with the Eskimo in
crude dirt dwellings. In summer they lived in tents. The work
had not been hard, but they had found it difficult to adjust
to the food they were given, especially the salted meat, which
they left in water for eight days before they could eat it.
Only when they became sick did they receive small portions
of fresh deer meat, despite the fact that they had been promised
fresh meat in their contracts. They had been assured, too,
that they would be permitted to take their dogs back to Norway,
free of charge, but had been forced to return without them.
Their children had suffered from convulsions, and all of them
had found it difficult to adjust to the climate during their
early months in the territory. One herder had lost his young
wife. But the Lapps admitted that the Eskimo had been willing
to learn the care of the deer. They would agree to return
to Alaska, as they had been able to save about 3,000 kroner
per family, if they were assured that contracts would be strictly
honored. {20}

Kjellman was forced to travel over 3,000 miles in Finnmark
and was reported from Alta to have secured only about 500
animals. After much effort, he had been [146] able to persuade
fifty Lapps to accompany him. Sheldon Jackson had shared his
search and had found the region more challenging for winter
travel than Chilkoot Pass in Alaska. But they were partially
successful, and Dr. Jackson wired the Department of War early
in February, 1898, that the Allan Line's Manitoba had left
Norway with 530 deer and 87 Lapp men and women. {21}

For some weeks the Norwegian-American press had been exaggerating
the number of Lapps and reindeer, but Skandinaven was close
to the truth in reporting that on February 27 the Manitoba
had arrived in New York, after a trip lasting 24 days, with
537 deer, 43 Lapps, 10 Finns, and 15 Norwegians who had brought
their families with them -- in all 68 men, 19 women, and 26
children. The group included six newly-married couples, Samuel
Balto, a Lapp who had been with Fridtjof Nansen in his famous
trip over Greenland, and Johan Peter Skalogare (Johannesen),
a Finn who had carried mail on his back for eight years in
Finnmark. The cargo included 418 pulkas (Lapp sledges), 511
sacks of sailcloth, and 4,000 sacks of moss. {22}

The train bearing the reindeer expedition, thirty-nine cars
divided into two sections, stopped off in Chicago on March
6, 1898, and, after the animals had been given some rest in
the stockyards, went on to Seattle. Skandinaven took the occasion
to announce that it was possible the deer and the sleighs
would be sold on the West Coast, as the government had learned
that help was no longer needed for the miners in the Yukon
and Alaska. The number of Finns in the party was now reported
as two. {23}

The reindeer grazing in Woodland Park in Seattle in 1898 before
going on to Alaska. The photograph is by the well-known Norwegian
photographer Anders Wilse. COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL COLLECTION,
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON LIBRARIES

When the train arrived in Seattle, the reindeer were taken
to Woodland Park, where crowds of people gathered to see them
and the Lapps. The government definitely had given up the
original plan for a relief expedition to the Yukon, according
to Washington Posten but [147] the deer nevertheless would
be sent to Alaska. The new plan was to divide the herd into
two parts; one with 337 animals would go to Pyramid Harbor,
and from there by the Dalton route to a place under American
jurisdiction, possibly Circle City, where a relief station
would be set up under Kjellman's direction. The remaining
200 deer would be sent to Prince William Sound with about
fifty attendants under the leadership of Captain W. R. Abercrombie.
The second expedition would investigate the Copper River (Port
Valdez) area, where it was hoped they could find a way, over
only American soil, by which to reach the gold fields in the
Yukon. The general attitude seemed to be that, although the
government had given up its original plan for which the reindeer
had [148] been purchased, much good would still come from
their use in Alaska. {24}

The first and larger expedition left Seattle aboard the bark
Seminole in March, sailing first to Port Townsend, where women
and children were to be put ashore temporarily, then going
on to Pyramid Harbor, where the reindeer were to be stationed
for a couple of months. It was reported that 200 of the animals
already had been sold to private individuals for $100 each.
In April, the second expedition, under Abercrombie and with
Martin Bjørnstad, an experienced miner, as interpreter,
left for Copper River. {25}

Kjellman returned to Wisconsin in the summer of 1898 to spend
some time with his family in Mount Horeb. Interviewed by Amerika
og Norden in Madison, he reported that he had had amazingly
good fortune with his reindeer in Alaska and likely would
continue to serve as superintendent. He also stated that there
had been three expeditions similar to his but under other
leaders during the past winter. In one instance, the last
deer had died when the ship from Norway anchored in New York.
A second expedition brought a couple of live animals as far
as Seattle, but these had died en route to Skagway. The third
had five live reindeer when it arrived in Skagway, but the
last of them had died at Lake Bennett. Kjellman had brought
536 of his 537 deer to Alaska in good condition. He informed
the newspaper that Pastor Brevig would return to the States
in the summer, as the government would soon end its work at
Port Clarence, where only a few families remained after the
reindeer station had been moved to its more favorable location.
Kjellman said he would go back to Alaska soon, and would proceed
to Siberia to secure more animals, {26}

The Norwegian Lapps who were hired as herders attracted much
attention. ANDERS WILSE. COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHY
COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON LIBRARIES

Martin Bjørnstad, with Captain Abercrombie's exploring
party in the Copper River country, wrote a series of [149]
long letters to Washington Posten late in 1898, but these
reports deal largely with mining prospects -- or lack of them
-- in the region. Abercrombie had been generous in providing
stranded gold-seekers with lodging and food -- presumably
including reindeer meat -- in Port Valdez. Traveling over
the Valdez Glacier was extremely difficult. Abercrombie's
expedition had left in the summer to cross the glacier and
explore the region beyond as far as Mount Wrangell. It apparently
found a better route to Copper River than the one by way of
Valdez Glacier, but it could be used only in late fall or
winter. Bjørnstad was one of the party that had found
it. {27}

Pastor Brevig, home in Wisconsin after his four-year period
of service at Port Clarence, also visited the offices of Amerika
og Norden and presented a lecture in Madison and elsewhere
on his Alaska experience. He [150] naturally hoped to arouse
interest in his mission and to promote support for his work
with the Eskimo. He reviewed the entire reindeer story and
said he thought the government's program was successful. Those
involved in it had discovered in time that at least half of
Alaska was clearly suited for grazing ground, and that the
wilderness could sustain millions of deer and serve the native
population well. {28}

On January 1, 1899, Lapps delivered at St. Michael what remained
of the main herd of reindeer transported from Norway. With
them were also a number of missionaries on the way to stations
along the coast. Significantly, the men brought news of a
remarkable discovery of gold in 1898 in small streams flowing
into the Snake River, which had its mouth at Cape Nome. Prospectors
had begun a stampede to Nome, some pulling their sleds themselves
because of the high price and shortage of dogs. Dr. Kittilsen,
who had been with the first Norwegians and Lapps to locate
claims, had been living at St. Michael for more than a month,
but returned to Nome on January 9 with an ample supply of
provisions. {29}

After the discovery of gold at Cape Nome, the reindeer program
was to play a secondary but not unimportant role in the overall
story of Alaska. But the people who had been and in part still
were involved in it --Lapps, Finns, and Norwegians -- were
to be major characters in the new saga of gold.

II

As late as the summer of 1899, Washington Posten, which reported
faithfully on incoming ships from Alaska, wrote mainly of
mines owned by Seattle Norwegians and of the successes, failures,
and tragedies among these people in the Yukon and Alaska.
But it also gave tentative reports of the gold find at Cape
Nome. [151] Hundreds of gold-seekers, the newspaper said,
were going there and to the Klondike daily, but Nome was being
favored, in part because it was on American soil. On June
30 it reported that rich gold fields "really have been
discovered" in the Seward Peninsula. In July, "gold
ships" began to arrive from St. Michael, and the Alliance
brought the first substantial news about Nome. Later ships
brought the report that there were more people than mines
at Cape Nome and advised people not to go there. {30}

The press had a reliable source of information from Nome
during the early fall of 1899 in Magnus Kjeldsberg, who had
been in charge of the reindeer sent to Norton Sound. When
he arrived at the station there, he learned of a gold discovery
on Anvil Creek. He had gone immediately to the Nome area and
had been fortunate in securing some of the best claims in
the new mining district. He, Dr. Kittilsen, and a few other
Norwegians could be said to be the richest men at Cape Nome.
Kjeldsberg had left Norway a little more than two years before
With hardly a cent in his pocket; now he counted his money
in the thousands of dollars. With another Norwegian, he later
operated a saloon on Anvil Creek. In September, Washington
Posten announced a second discovery of gold along the beaches
at Cape Nome; there, too, Norwegians had been among the fortunate.
{31}

Once fully aware of the importance of the discovery on Anvil
Creek, the Norwegian-language newspapers carried many stories
about it and Nome, often with exaggerated estimates of the
riches taken. Although most of the miners had earned good
money, many were nevertheless sick because they lacked fuel
for heating, and among them was Jafet Lindeberg, the chief
discoverer on Anvil Creek. A little over two years before,
he had come with the Lapps in the second reindeer expedition,
and had gone to Norton Sound with Magnus [152] Kjeldsberg
and his brother. Lindeberg recovered and arrived in Seattle
aboard the gold ship Roanoke, which carried $1,500,000 in
the precious metal. Lindeberg and John Brynteson were reported
to have $400,000 each, J, R. Anderson, $100,000, H. C. Wilhelmson,
$30,000, and William A. Kjellman, $75,000. Kjellman, who planned
to spend the winter in Wisconsin, was accompanied by Dr. Kittilsen,
who also had rich claims. {32}

Late in 1899, Skandinaven ran a long but misleading story
about Cape Nome, among other things stating that the chief
discoverer of gold there had been a Swedish Covenant missionary
from Chicago, the Reverend Nels O. Hultberg. {33} This and
other inaccurate articles in the Norwegian-American press
also had implied less than honest actions by Hultberg and
another Covenant missionary, P. H. Anderson. Kjellman felt
impelled to write an article correcting these errors, and
he sent copies of it to various newspapers from his home at
Mount Horeb. He described the "gold belt" to which
Nome belonged. Paying sand had been found at various places
in the belt; each had its own "discoverer," Kjellman
wrote, "and I think that, if one knew the whole truth,
Scandinavians without doubt hold the record. This, in any
case, is true along the Bering Sea coast" -- a fitting
consequence, he added, of the fact that Virus Bering, the
first European to sail those waters, was a Scandinavian.

Kjellman explained that the discovery at Cape Nome was made
in 1898 by the Swedes Erik O. Lindblom and John Brynteson
and the Norwegian Jafet Lindeberg. The three men had sailed
from Golovnin Bay on September 11 in a fiat-bottomed boat
"in which few would have risked their lives." On
September 18, coming to one of the Snake River's tributaries
-- later named Anvil Creek -- they had found coarse gold in
paying quantities. The men had remained long enough on Anvil
Creek to seek out and stake what they thought were -- [153]
and what proved to be -- the best claims. They had returned
to Golovnin Bay on October 5 to get several more men to join
them and to agree on the necessary bylaws for the new district.

Dr. Kittilsen, who was then at Golovnin Bay, Gabe Price of
San Francisco, Johan I. Tornanses (Tornensis), a Lapp, and
the three discoverers had set out for Nome on October 12 in
a small schooner belonging to the Swedish mission and had
arrived at Snake River on the 15th. There they had organized
a mining district, staked their claims, opened a recorder's
office, and chosen Kittilsen recorder. They had worked at
their tasks until the freeze set in, then had returned overland
to Golovnin Bay and given out the news of their actions. These,
Kjellman maintained, were the naked facts about Anvil Creek.
Stories in Skandinaven and other newspapers some time earlier
had tended to blacken the reputations of two honorable Swedish
missionaries. He thought the much publicized "beach diggings"
at Nome would yield little gold but that the rivers and creeks,
as well as the tundra in the Cape Nome district, would give
up a great deal of treasure; they were already largely "located."
{34}

There was a measure of truth in Skandinaven's story about
Hultberg as the discoverer of gold at Cape Nome. Captain Daniel
B. Libby, who had been a member of the Western Union Telegraph
construction corps in Alaska, was among those who had found
evidence of gold on Mesling and Ophir creeks in 1897. After
spending the winter at Golovnin, he and his associates had
resumed prospecting and founded Council City. Hultberg, who
had established and was in charge of the Swedish Covenant
mission at Cheenik on Golovnin Bay, came to Libby's camp on
April 23, 1898, and took part in the organization of the Discovery
mining district, the first placer district on the Seward Peninsula.
Soon [154] after, he participated in the creation of the Eldorado
(El Dorado) mining district, adjoining Discovery, and the
Bonanza district on Golovnin Bay.

Hultberg had actually prospected before Libby's arrival.
One result of this activity had been a rush of prospectors
to the Kotzebue area in the summer of 1898. No promising discovery
resulted there, however, and the Ophir Creek findings were
soon "eclipsed by strikes on Anvil Creek." Natives
had reported gold on the beach of the Sinuk River, information
that led Hultberg, Brynteson, H. L. Blake, and others to set
out in a schooner for the site. A storm forced them to take
refuge at the mouth of the Snake River. Prospecting there,
they crossed Anvil Creek but found little gold and failed
to stake out claims. Similarly, they did not find gold in
sufficient amounts in the beach sands of the Sinuk River.
{35}

By far the most important account of the gold discovery on
Anvil Creek was written in later years by Jafet Lindeberg.
A trader in Golovnin Bay named John Dexter, he wrote, had
provided a few natives with gold pans and instructed them
in their use. While on a fishing and hunting trip, an Eskimo
named Tom Gaurik found gold on Ophir Creek in the Council
City area. When he returned in August, 1897, he reported his
find. Shortly thereafter, a few prospectors representing San
Francisco capitalists under a grubstake contract learned of
the native's experience from Dexter. Prospecting there with
others during the winter and spring of 1897-1898, they staked
claims on Ophir and Melsing creeks and organized the Eldorado
mining district, elected a recorder, and drafted rules. When
news of their success slipped out, a rush followed from nearby
places. He continued:

"I, Jafet Lindeberg, a native of Norway, came to this
country in the spring of 1898 with Sheldon Jackson. . . .for
the express purpose of going to Plover Bay, in [155] Eastern
Siberia, to relieve Captain Kelly, who was trading at that
place for reindeer. . . . I left Seattle on the steamer Del
Norte . . . taking with me a stock of provisions. . . . On
arrival at St. Michael, news was brought to Doctor Jackson
that Captain Kelly had been driven away from Plover Bay by
hostile natives. It was then decided that it would be unwise
to send me over there and, being left without a suitable position,
Doctor Jackson gave me permission to leave Government employ.
This I did, and, taking my outfit, made for the new diggings
at Council City, which had been located on the banks of the
Niukluk River, near Ophir Creek."

Lindeberg introduced his major associates in this manner:
"John Brynteson, a native of Sweden and an experienced
coal and iron miner who for seven years had worked in the
mines of Michigan, determined to go to Alaska and look for
coal. Arriving in St. Michael and hearing of the discoveries
on Ophir Creek he promptly left St. Michael for Council City,
arriving there early in the summer of 1898.

"Erik O. Lindblom, a native of Sweden, by profession
a tailor, and for years following his trade in San Francisco,
while there, hearing of the fabulous reports from Kotzebue
Sound, joined the stampede, going north on the bark Alaska.
Arriving at Port Clarence on his way . . . and hearing of
the gold discovery on Ophir Creek, he left the ship and proceeded
to Golofin [sic] Bay, then to Council City.

"We three men," Lindeberg continued, "met
by chance at Council City in August, 1898; after prospecting
around in that district for some time and staking some claims,
we formed a prospecting companionship and decided to prospect
over a wider range of territory. Even at this early date the
Council City district was overrun by stampeders and staked
to the mountain tops; so we proceeded to Golofin Bay and taking
a large open [156] boat and an outfit of provisions, on September
11, 1898, started up the coast toward Port Clarence, stopping
at various rivers to prospect on the way, in which we found
signs of gold, but not in paying quantities, and finally arriving
at what is now known as the town of Nome, which we named,
and camped at the mouth of Glacier Creek, prospecting as we
went along. The first encouraging sign of gold we found on
the banks of the Snake River .... After locating our camp
as before mentioned, we proceeded to prospect along the tributaries
of Snake River, which tributaries we named as follows: Anvil
Creek (taking the name from an anvil-shaped rock which stands
on the mountain on the east side of the creek), Snow Gulch,
Glacier Creek, Rock Creek and Dry Creek, in all of which we
found gold in paying quantities and proceeded to locate claims,
first on Anvil Creek because we found better prospects in
that creek than in the others, and where we located the 'discovery
claim' in the name of us three jointly. In addition to this,
each man staked a separate claim in his own name on the creek.
This was the universal custom in Alaska, as it was conceded
that the discoverer was entitled to a discovery claim and
one other. After locating on Anvil Creek, claims were staked
on Snow Gulch, Dry Creek and Rock Creek, after which we returned
to Golofin Bay and reported the discovery.

"It was then decided to form a mining district, so we
three original discoverers organized a party, taking with
us Dr. A. N. Kittleson, G. W. Price, P. H. Anderson and a
few others, again proceeded to Nome in a small schooner which
we charted in Golofin Bay, purchasing as many provisions as
we could carry on the boat, and on our arrival the Cape Nome
mining district was organized and Dr. A. N. Kittleson elected
the first recorder. Rules were formulated, after which the
party prospected and staked claims, finally returning to Golofin
[157] Bay for winter quarters. The news spread like wildfire
and soon a wild stampede was made to the new diggings from
Council City, St. Michael and the far-off Yukon.

"At this point very few mining men were in the country,
the newcomers in many instances being from every trade known.
The consequences of this were soon well known; a few men with
a smattering of education gave their own interpretation of
the mining laws, hence jumping, mining claims soon became
an active industry. . . . They were angry to think that they
had not been taken in at the beginning, so a few of them jumped
nearly every claim on Anvil Creek, although there was an abundance
of vacant and unlocated ground left which has since proved
to be more valuable than the original claims located by us
and our second party who helped us to form the district. This
jumping, or relocating of claims by the parties above mentioned,
poisoned the minds of all the newcomers against every original
locator of mining claims and as a consequence every original
claim was relocated by from one to a dozen different parties.
. . .

"In the early months of 1899 we hauled supplies to the
creeks and as soon as the thaw came began active mining on
Snow Gulch and on Anvil Creek. Soon a large crowd flocked
to Nome, which was then known as Anvil Creek. Among this crowd
was a large element of lawless men who soon joined forces
with the Council City jumpers and every effort was made by
them to create trouble. . . . and had it not been for the
military, who proved themselves to be true men to the American
Government, much riot and bloodshed would have resulted from
the conduct of the aforementioned parties. . . .

"The situation was suddenly relieved in an unexpected
manner. It was accidently discovered that the beach sands
were rich in gold. . . . Within a few weeks [158] the mutterings
of discontent were almost silenced because it was found that
good wages could be made with rockers on the beach. All the
idle men went to work as fast as they could obtain implements."
{36}

Something of what it meant to come to Nome from northern
Norway and to work in one of Jafet Lindeberg's mines is told
in the story of Leonhard Seppala, who later won fame as a
dog racer in the 408-mile All-Alaska Sweepstakes and the Ruby
Derby. Lindeberg financed the trip of this young fisherman,
who in turn was to repay its cost from wages, a sum of $300.
On arrival, Seppala and his fellow immigrants wandered about
the sprawling town of Nome for several days, finally taking
shelter in a cabin owned by Lapps, where they slept on the
floor. There they waited for word from Lindeberg. It finally
came in the form of a request that Seppala and his partner
Magnus, also a fisherman, drive a heavily loaded wagon to
Discovery on Anvil Creek. Neither had ever driven a horse
and they found it necessary to bribe a stableboy to harness
a lively team and hitch it to the wagon. Beyond the firm beach,
out on the tundra, their troubles began. "The horses
went down in the soft mud and the wagon sank to the axles.
Time and again we unloaded the wagon, carrying the burden
by hand until we found more solid footing." Almost ready
to give up, they were saved by a prospector familiar with
their problem. In all, it took eleven hours to make the five-mile
trip to the mine.

Leonhard and Magnus were separated the next day. Seppala's
account of the job he was assigned suggests the demands made
on the workers in the mines. He was ordered to hold a horse-pulled
slip-scraper, "which was used to clear away the tailing
at the lower end of the sluice boxes. It looked simple enough,
but the teamster kept the horses at a trot all the forenoon
while I followed filling the scraper and then running behind
and [159] dumping it. Later I found out that the dumping was
supposed to be the teamster's job." Seppala was saved
from total exhaustion by transferring to another job, which
was only a bit less strenuous. After the scraper was damaged
and taken to the shop for repair, he was put to work shoveling
gravel into the sluice boxes, an activity that at first "seemed
child's play to me"; but he soon realized that he was
falling behind another miner opposite him who "worked
like a machine." When the day ended, Seppala's arms "ached
and throbbed" and his "blistered hands burned"
so he could not sleep.

What any worker in the mines along Anvil Creek confronted
in addition to meager wages was a group of "slave-driving
bosses. . . . It was a case of the survival of the fittest."
The result was discouragement and disillusion on every side.
"Men who had never done a day's hard work in their lives
toiled and struggled trying to earn enough money to leave
the country." After a ten-hour day of shoveling and a
sleepless night, Seppala said, "I was in a sort of daze
from fatigue. They told me it was time for me to do some real
work -- I was to go on night shift." For mineowners,
the almost impossible efforts of the workers were profitable
indeed. Discovery Mine on Anvil Creek yielded "from six
to fifteen thousand dollars in a two-day run of each string
of boxes. I saw gold dust and nuggets by the pan and bucketful."

Seppala went on at least one prospecting trip at Lindeberg's
request, with negative results. When the prospectors returned,
he went back to his night shift. "All that September
the rain never stopped." His new foreman was a well-read
American who taught the newcomer English and the ways of the
country. But the work continued to be unbearable. Seppala
stated that his arms burned so with fever that he would go
out of his tent and "thrust them into the cold water
in one of the pits to cool them and so relieve the pain. .
. . After [160] insufficient rest, the men would drag themselves
to the pits, stiff and sore in every limb, dressed in oil-skins,
sou'westers, and rubber boots, with coal-oil headlights making
a weak light." Water "ran in streams down our necks
as we bent over, and trickled up our arms as we lifted them
with each shovelful of gravel -- a process repeated probably
two thousand times in a night. . . . Men came, worked a shift
or more, and left, some did not last a single shift."

Seppala, when each evening approached, thought of his home
in Norway. In his words, "I . . regretted that I had
listened to the golden-tongued orators who had persuaded me
to come to Alaska.. . . I wanted adventure and I was getting
it. . . . Often when I awoke . . . I would try to console
myself with the thought that after all this life had one advantage
over that of the Norse fisherman -- we at least had ground
under our feet, and not hundreds of fathoms of roaring Arctic
Ocean. . . . If only the gold had not beckoned and I had been
able to stay in Southeastern Alaska and fish as I had planned
so long ago!" Daylight brought new hope. At breakfast,
"which was supper for us . . . we would build a crackling
fire in the little tent stove. It was so cozy in there that
we would fire up and talk for hours while our clothes dried
and the boys from neighboring tents dropped in and exchanged
stories with us . . . Our troubles were forgotten until we
went to bed and the pain and fever returned."

Lindeberg, a major victim of mine-jumping, was not averse
to using violence himself in defense of his claims. One night
he ordered Seppala and four other men to report at his office.
There he told them and additional men to go quietly in pairs
to his No. 2 mine on Glacier Creek and to meet him at the
southeast corner stake. All received guns, left at ten-minute
intervals to walk the six miles in darkness to Glacier, and,
arriving, [161] were stationed at various points on the property.
Jumpers made two attempts to relocate the claim, and failed.
Shots were fired and three intruders were captured. Seppala,
who was involved in the fighting, injured one of the jumpers
by hitting him with his rifle.

One morning late in October, Ole, boss of a nearby group
of night workers, stuck his head into Seppala's tent and announced,
"Well, it's all off. She froze up on us last night. You
clean up the boxes for the last time to-day." Seppala
then found a temporary job in a small camp where the men did
their own "sourdough cooking.'' He worked with two young
Norwegian Americans just out of school and unused to hard
work, but the demands were not great and they got along well.

In December, Lindeberg brought news of the gold discovery
in the Kougarok and of a plan to send out four men and two
dog teams to prospect in the area. He invited three Swedes
and Seppala to join the party, causing the latter to dream
of making a strike, staking a claim, and becoming rich. The
trip with his congenial partners was rich in experience and
tragic in its revelation of what white civilization had done
to the Eskimo, but it failed in its search for gold. Seppala
never "struck it rich," but, as he told the writer
in 1948, he was glad of it. He had seen enough of what the
metal could do to people like himself.
When asked his opinion of Jafet Lindeberg, Seppala described
him as a strong, natural leader of men, but lacking in education.
Tall and athletic, he had been a fine seaman and fisherman
in Norway. His parents, both of Finnish origin, had come to
Finnmark by way of Sweden. (Seppala's mother was Norwegian;
his father was half Finnish.) Lindeberg, something of a "plunger,"
who was forced to spend a fortune in the litigation resulting
from an effort to steal his mines, had later lost much of
his money in Nevada. Speaking of the [162] Nome of the early
1900s, Seppala said it was full of Norwegians, some from Finnmark
and other parts of Norway, others from the States. Swedes,
also deeply involved in the gold discoveries, were perhaps
equally numerous. But the workers in the mines had come from
everywhere. Seppala, while directing operations in an underground
mine, had had employees from Russia, Portugal, Egypt, Montenegro,
and other countries under his supervision. {37}

III

The discovery of gold on Cape Nome was followed by what must
be described as one of the most notorious and infamous judicial
scandals in American history. It involved the theft, by legal
action, of the rich placer mines largely owned by Scandinavians,
and it was perpetrated by the judge of a district court in
Alaska in collaboration with a prominent national politician.

The Norwegian press in America covered the Nome scandal thoroughly
and, on the whole, accurately, but it is best to hear this
story of intrigue and conspiracy first from a person trained
in the law and familiar with the Alaskan scene. Perhaps no
one was better qualified to interpret its legal aspects than
James Wickersham, who served as a district judge in Alaska
after 1900 and was later the territorial delegate to Congress
for fourteen years. He was editor of seven volumes of Alaska
Law Reports and author of a Bibliography of Alaskan Literature.

Wickersham writes that among those who went to Nome in 1899
were lawyers to whom it seemed "wickedly unfair that
the rich claims, so few in number, should fall to a few 'lucky
Swedes' and Lapland rein-deer-herders, and loud protests began
to rise above the warm stoves in the straggling new town.
Then some 'sea lawyer' raised the question whether these aliens
could legally locate and hold mining claims in Alaska."
When [163] the Nome lawyers answered this question in the
negative, the protests grew into threats, and the threats
led to action.

Certain discontented miners shared his view and at a meeting
on July 10, 1899, a resolution was drafted declaring the claims
of the Scandinavians illegal and therefore open to relocation.
The leaders among the protesters had men stationed on Anvil
Mountain, near the mines; the understanding was that when
they saw a signal fire in Nome they would know that the resolution
had passed and that they should get on with jumping the claims.
Word of this scheme, however, had got to Fort St. Michael.
A Lieutenant Spaulding and two of his soldiers proceeded to
Nome, attended the miners' meeting, and forced adjournment
by motion.

Frustrated in their claim-jumping plan, the Nome lawyers
sought to have the mining laws altered in their favor, and
sent one of their men to Washington, D.C., where a bill was
pending in the Senate in the fall of 1899 for civil government
in Alaska. An act of 1884 had stated that the laws of Oregon
"are hereby declared to be the law in said district so
far as the same may be applicable." According to the
civil code of Oregon, an "alien may acquire and hold
lands, or interest therein, by purchase, devise, or descent,
and he may convey, mortgage, and devise the same, and if he
shall die intestate, the same shall descend to his heirs;
and in all cases such lands shall be held, conveyed, mortgaged,
or devised or shall descend in like manner and with like effect
as if such alien were a native citizen of this state or the
United States." Section 73 of the Oregon civil code specifically
stated that the "title to any lands heretofore conveyed
shall not be questioned, nor in any manner affected, by reason
of the alienage of any person from or through whom such title
may have been derived."
These parts of the Oregon code had been put into [164] Senate
bill 3919, which was introduced on March 1, 1900, by Senator
T. H. Carter of Montana. When the bill came up for discussion,
Senator H. C. Hansbrough of North Dakota moved their elimination
and offered what came to be known as the "Hansbrough
amendment," which declared invalid the claims on Anvil
Creek and permitted relocation by jumpers ready to act. The
amendment was immediately opposed by senators W. M. Stewart
of Nevada, J. C. Spooner of Wisconsin, Knute Nelson of Minnesota,
H. M. Teller of Colorado, and others.

Finding the Hansbrough motion inadequate, the senators who
had favored it gave their support to another amendment introduced
by Hansbrough on April 4: "That persons who are not citizens
of the United States or who prior to making location had not
legally declared that intention to become such, shall not
be permitted to locate, hold, or convey mining claims in said
district of Alaska, nor shall any title to a mining claim
acquired by location or purchase through any such person or
persons be legal." This altered motion also led to vigorous
objection and heated debate in what Wickersham likens to a
lawsuit in the Senate. When it appeared that the debate might
prevent passage of the bill, which also provided for needed
civil government in Alaska, the senators arrived at a compromise
that eliminated the controversial sections from the Oregon
civil code on alien property rights, and the bill was passed.
Nothing in American law, however, denied aliens the right
to own or to sell mines.

As Wickersham asserts and the Norwegian-American press had
charged all along, the leader and moving spirit in the struggle
to get approval of the Hansbrough amendment and its revision
had been Alexander McKenzie, a Republican national committeeman
from North Dakota who had strong political influence in the
[165] capital and in the states of Minnesota, North Dakota,
and Montana. He had been a receiver for the Northern Pacific
Railway during its financially difficult years and subsequently
chief lobbyist in Washington for this and other railroads.
It was to him that the lawyers representing the jumpers in
Alaska turned in their effort to secure the Anvil Creek mines.
He failed to steer the Hansbrough amendment through the Senate,
but succeeded in eliminating the controversial Oregon sections
from the Alaska bill. He also had become interested in the
Nome gold field and had set his mind on securing what he could
of it.

McKenzie, together with his friends in the Senate, next had
to make sure that his nominees were chosen for the new United
States First District Court in Alaska. President William McKinley
obliged by appointing Arthur H. Noyes of Minnesota as judge,
C. L. Vawter of Montana as marshal, and Joseph K. Wood, also
of Montana, as district attorney. McKenzie even influenced
the selection of minor officers. He then organized, under
the laws of Arizona, a corporation with authorized capital
stock of $15,000,000. He became president and general manager
of this firm, the Alaska Gold Mining Company, and later arranged
with Hubbard, Beeman, and Hume, attorneys for the jumpers
in Nome, to buy from their clients titles to the mines they
had taken. Payment for the claims was made in stock in his
company. McKenzie also doled out shares to friends who would
help him in his scheme, put some in reserve for other purchases,
and was believed to have kept the majority of the shares for
himself. It was clear that, in Wickersham's words, he was
"intent on capturing a fortune by piratic force from
a few simple-minded Lapp reindeer-herders and hard-digging
Scandinavian miners. It looked to the boss like an easy job!"
{38}

If what had happened in the Senate was part of a [166] carefully
worked out plan to justify the seizure of mines from their
rightful owners, what followed was nothing less than a colossal
swindle. Judge Noyes, an old friend of McKenzie's in Minnesota
who had been in Washington during the hearings on the Alaska
bill, sailed to Nome from Seattle on the Senator in the company
of McKenzie and Robert Chipps, jumper claimant of Discovery
mine on Anvil Creek. Noyes remained aboard ship after McKenzie
and Chipps went ashore in Nome. On the day of landing, July
19, 1900, McKenzie met with the attorney W. T. Hume of the
firm Hubbard, Beeman, and Hume; the result was the transfer
to McKenzie's company of a half-interest in the disputed mines.
Noyes then entered Nome on July 21. When Wood, the district
attorney, became a member of Hubbard, Beeman, and Hume, McKenzie
also received a quarter-interest in the legal firm.

It was at once clear that McKenzie faced strong opposition
in Charles D. Lane, a successful miner from California, Jafet
Lindeberg, whom Wickersham describes as a shrewd businessman
who had the witnesses essential to fighting the schemers,
and two young San Francisco lawyers, Samuel Knight and W.
H. Metson. Lane had organized the Wild Goose Mining Company,
which did battle beside Lindeberg's Pioneer Mining Company.
McKenzie and his attorneys relied on Judge Noyes to put into
effect the plan prepared by them to make McKenzie receiver
of the claims and to protect him as he worked out the mines.
Knowing of the relationship between the two men, Lindeberg
and Lane understood that they could have no justice in Nome:
their lawyers therefore prepared to appeal to the United States
Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

According to Wickersham, McKenzie's lawyers "had four
actions pending in the court over which Judge Noyes would
preside, attacking the right of the original [167] locators
to four of the most valuable claims on Anvil Creek. Another
case was brought . . . by Chipps, who had previously jumped
Discovery claim, and on . . . the 24th, at six o'clock p.m.,
in Judge Noyes' private room in his hotel, applications were
presented by Hume to the Judge to appoint receivers for these
five claims. Without notice to the defendants, and without
even reading the papers or the orders he signed, as his first
judicial act at Nome, Judge Noyes appointed McKenzie receiver
for these five claims, with instructions to take immediate
possession and extract the gold therefrom." He ordered
those who held the mines to deliver them to McKenzie and to
refrain from any kind of interference in working them. "The
receiver's bond was fixed at $5,000 in each case, though the
output from one of the claims alone was stated to be $15,000
a day. The receiver had two wagons ready and he and his men
raced to Anvil Creek that night and took immediate possession
of the claims and all personal property thereon, to the surprise
of the owners who had not expected such quick work."

When Noyes refused to listen to the mineowners' attorneys
or even to grant them the right of appeal in Nome, they sent
lawyers to San Francisco who delivered Noyes's papers to Judge
William W. Morrow of the federal court of appeals. This court
was not sitting, but Morrow prepared orders permitting appeals
in the five cases and "directed that writs of supersedeas
issue thereon . . . directed to McKenzie and Judge Noyes commanding
Noyes to desist from any further proceedings on account of
said orders, and commanding McKenzie to restore to the defendants
in said cases all property which he had taken as receiver.
Certified copies of the orders allowing appeals and writs
of supersedeas in all such cases were returned to and filed
in the district court at Nome, and served upon Judge [168]
Noyes and McKenzie. The receiver refused to enter orders requiring
him to do so, and denied the right of the Circuit Court of
Appeals to allow the appeals and to issue the writs of supersedeas."

The owners' attorneys thus failed in their effort to get
the judge and receiver to comply with the orders of the San
Francisco court. Noyes and McKenzie were taking the advice
of Wood, the district attorney, McKenzie's private lawyer,
and C. A. S. Frost, an examiner in the Department of Justice
who was then serving in Alaska and who stated his views "in
violent and defiant language.'' The defendants, having no
other course, then "made up the record and filed it in
the Circuit Court of Appeals . . . with an application for
its mandatory action.'' That court on October 1 found that
the receiver "had continued to refuse to restore the
gold and gold dust and other personal property." It also
ordered two deputy marshals "to proceed to Nome, to enforce
its writs of supersedeas, arrest the offending receiver .
. . and produce him at the bar of that court at San Francisco.

McKenzie and his men again refusing to comply with the writs,
the marshals proceeded "to secure the large amount of
gold dust deposited in the Nome bank (the Alaska Banking and
Safe-Deposit Company) in McKenzie's private deposit boxes."
Their task was no easy one, as McKenzie resisted physically
and provoked "a violent altercation" at the bank
counter. The marshals called upon the army at Fort Davis,
and a guard of soldiers came to their assistance. They then
broke open the boxes, extracted the gold dust, delivered it
to the mine-owners, arrested McKenzie, and "boarded the
last boat for San Francisco."

McKenzie was tried on February 11, 1901, was found guilty
in two cases, and was sentenced to imprisonment for one year
in the Alameda county jail. The court of [169] appeals used
blunt, harsh language in sentencing him and praised the people
of Alaska for depending "solely upon the courts for the
correction of the wrongs." McKenzie's attorneys applied
to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus
testing the legality of his sentence; it reviewed his case
but refused to prepare the writ. His many political friends
rallied to support him and in May, 1901, President McKinley,
on tour in San Francisco, received an appeal for a pardon
from McKenzie, who claimed ill health. The appeal was granted
reluctantly after McKenzie returned the gold dust he had shipped
to Seattle.

According to Wickersham, McKenzie's "notorious criminal
activities as the head of the most flagrant prostitution of
American courts known in our history, and his other offenses
were all forgiven by the President's pardon. He returned to
North Dakota, where his health quickly recovered its normal
condition, and continued in his activities as a leading citizen."
In July, citations were issued by the San Francisco court,
taken to Nome, and served on Noyes, Wood, Dudley Du Bose and
Thomas J. Geary, McKenzie's legal advisers, and Frost. They
were ordered to appear before the court of appeals, where
they were charged with contempt. All but Geary were found
guilty. Noyes was sentenced to pay a fine of $1,000; Wood
was given four months in jail, Du Bose, six, and Frost, twelve;
all served their terms. Noyes and Wood were subsequently removed
from office. {39}

Unfortunately, others had followed the example of McKenzie
and his associates in the Nome area. When Wickersham arrived
there on September 16, 1901, he found that with the excuse
that the locators had not been citizens, many claims had been
jumped, and the original owners had had little chance to defend
their rights. Lawsuits had been started but not tried. After
the [170] San Francisco decisions, the miners naturally expected
that they would recover their property. When Noyes sailed
for San Francisco, the owners had joined forces and driven
off the jumpers, in effect setting themselves above the law.
Soldiers had seized the claims but had not worked them. With
Wickersham's appearance, they withdrew and civil authority
was restored. The judge had some 200 cases before him, but
speed in dealing with them was possible because of the San
Francisco interpretation of the law. Case after case involving
jumping and disputed ownership was tried during the winter
of 1901-1902. The "business of the town and district
began to respond to the settlement of title." The "cleansing
of the Augean stables at Nome," begun by Wickersham,
was continued by Judge Alfred A. Moore of Pennsylvania, who
arrived on July 13, 1902, to fill the bench vacated by Noyes.
{40}

IV

Meanwhile, the Norwegian-American newspapers carried numerous
stories, often written as letters from Alaska, about the discoveries
at Nome and the subsequent attempts to steal the mines.

One of the first and most competent correspondents to write
from Nome was Captain E. M. Cederbergh of Portland, Oregon,
who went to Alaska early in 1900 as director of the Arctic
Trading and Mining Company. {41} His reports to the Norwegian-American
press were detailed, reflecting sound judgment. The same can
be said of the letters from C. M. Thuland, who after graduation
from Luther College and a short course at the University of
Minnesota law school published and edited newspapers in both
English and Norwegian. Going to Seattle in 1889, he started
Washington Tidende, which later merged with Washington Posten.
He continued his studies in law, was admitted to the bar,
and opened [171] an office in Seattle. He went to Nome in
the spring of 1900 to defend the interests of clients and
remained there, gaining some notoriety in suits involving
mining property. As a journalist, he also wrote interesting
stories about Scandinavian social life in Nome. {42}

Skandinaven was quick to publicize the efforts to deprive
the Scandinavians of their rightful claims to mines. Beginning
with its April 27, 1900, issue, it covered the debates in
the Senate, April 18-19, under the caption Guldtyve (Gold
Thieves). {43} The editors expressed their indignation at
the shameful treatment of the Norwegians, Swedes, and Lapps
in Nome and also the misrepresentations of the situation in
the English-language press. The newspaper promised its readers
to expose the whole story of the "Laplanders," as
all the Scandinavians and Finns were labeled by those who
sought to rob them, and spared no words in condemning a so-called
Law and Order League for trying to secure the help of Congress
in carrying out its plans. It praised Senator Knute Nelson
for his defense of the Scandinavians in Nome and such senators
as Teller, Stewart, Spooner, and others who supported him.
As for Senator Hansbrough, Skandinaven said the Norwegians
in North Dakota knew him well as an enemy of Scandinavians
but never dreamed that he would sink to the level of becoming
the congressional spokesman and tool for a gang of lawless
thieves. {44}

The next month, with a clearer view of what had gone on in
the Senate, Skandinaven loaded both editorial barrels for
an article called "Covering up His Tracks." It charged
that Hansbrough, after having been "compelled to abandon
his dishonorable plot of robbing the discoverers by means
of retroactive legislation," was making "vigorous
efforts to enlist some of the Washington correspondents in
his cause. In this he appears to have been rather successful.
W. E. Curtis had [172] come to his rescue in the Chicago Record."
The editorial quoted Curtis as saying that the Alaska bill
"would have been defeated in the Senate and Alaska would
have been left another year without any laws if Senator Hansbrough
and Senator Carter had not yielded the amendment prohibiting
the location of mining claims by aliens which they had advocated
so earnestly. Senator Stewart . . . and others whose friends
are interested in a syndicate that has purchased a lot of
claims at Cape Nome from the Laplanders . . . showed a determination
to defeat the bill by talking it to death rather than accept
the Hansbrough amendment, which canceled the Laplander claims
and left them open to relocation by American miners. Most
of the claims . . . have been 'jumped' by genuine miners,
and the titles will now be settled either by shotguns or the
courts. Alaska people report a general and determined hostility
against the syndicate, and the miners profess to be able to
take care of themselves."

Skandinaven's reply to the Record was a simple statement
of the facts in the conflict. It pointed to the "fine
Italian hand of Hansbrough" in the Curtis account, which
it described as "nothing but a maze of misrepresentations.
It conceals the fact that the amendment . . . was smuggled
in as a substitute for a unanimous committee report; it describes
the original claim-holders as alien Laplanders, whereas the
truth is that nearly all of them are Scandinavians and citizens
or intended citizens; it represents the contest as a fight
between individual American miners and a powerful California
syndicate, while, as a matter of fact, it is a fight between
the . . . discoverers and lawful claim-holders . . . and a
lawless mob, many of whom were aliens. . . Mr. Curtis conceals
the fact that Senator Hansbrough himself is one of the claim-jumpers,
by proxy or otherwise, while he insinuates that those who
opposed the Hansbrough outrage were working on [173] behalf
of interested friends! . . . He has been misled into fathering
a veiled charge of which there is no trace even in Hansbrough's
curious argument."

Skandinaven also called attention to an article written by
the Washington correspondent of the Minneapolis Journal, who
"tells the same story . . . and it is very evident that
both gentlemen have drawn upon the same source." The
Journal scribe "dons the mask of impartiality and appears
to be very much concerned about the truth. But the burden,
not to say purpose, of the article is to mislead the reader
-- to befog what must have been perfectly clear to the writer
himself if he had made any attempt at all to ascertain the
facts." Skandinaven was indignant over the fact that
the Journal's writer "gravely informs his readers that
a California syndicate sent the 'Laplanders' to a district
where gold was not known to exist, for the purpose of gobbling
up all the gold there; and that such simple-minded fellows
as senators Nelson and Spooner were caught in a Democratic
trap and -- 'unbeknownst to themselves,' of course -- were
aiding a Democratic scheme of securing a million dollars of
Cape Nome gold for the Bryan campaign tired!"

"Here," according to Skandinaven "are some
of the pertinent, incontestable facts that the Journal man
has neglected to state:

"1. The so-called 'Laplanders' were mostly Scandinavians
or Finns. Some of them were United States citizens; others
had declared their intention to become citizens in the manner
prescribed by law, while the rest (including Lindeberg)
had declared such intention in good faith before a United
States commissioner in Alaska.
"2. Even if they had been aliens, their right to hold
claims is indisputable according to the act of 1897, as
interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. .
.
"3. Some of the members of the so-called Law and [174]
Order League were, or are, aliens in the service of English
syndicates.
"4. The Hansbrough amendment was presented, surreptitiously,
as a substitute for a unanimous committee report. Senator
Carter, the chief champion of the amendment on the floor
of the Senate, had given his cordial support in committee
to the section he had subsequently, at the solicitation
of Hansbrough, sought to defeat.
"5. The Hansbrough amendment was an attempt at retroactive
legislation, one of the most odious forms of injustice and
oppression.
"6. Senator Hansbrough is himself one of the claim-jumpers
at Cape Nome.
"7. Senator Stewart stated upon the floor of the Senate
that, if the claims of certain people (Senator Hansbrough)
had been good, the amendment would not have been presented.
To this Senator Hansbrough made no reply." {45}

William A. Kjellman was delighted with Skandinaven's expose.
Writing to the newspaper from his home in Mount Horeb, he
maintained that the affair was "far more important for
the Scandinavian population in this country than it would
first appear to be. The assault against some of them at Cape
Nome by 'American tramps' for whom Senator Hansbrough . .
. has made himself spokesman is one of the worst and most
infamous attacks that has ever been made against our people."
The same was true, he wrote, of Hansbrough's shameful performance
in the Senate, and he hoped the Norwegians in North Dakota
would not forget it. He had been in Nome after December, 1898,
and knew very well how the jumpers went about their work.
"If it hadn't been for the timely help that the Scandinavians
received from the military authorities, one would have heard
long ago of bloody conflict up there, [175] as well as complaints
that in this country there is no law or justice." Kjellman
did not know Senator Nelson, but he expressed gratitude for
Nelson's skillful defense of the mineowners. He was less enthusiastic
about the Scandinavian press in America; during the two weeks
he had followed events in the Senate, he had looked for articles
in support of their people and those who defended them in
Washington, but, until Skandinaven spoke out, he had waited
in vain. He hoped now that other newspapers would follow its
example. {46}

If the other Norwegian-American newspapers gave less attention
than Skandinaven to the Senate debates, they were nevertheless
keenly interested in the Nome story. Washington Posten reported
in July, 1900, that since General Randall had taken command
in the city, lawlessness had decreased significantly. But
mine-jumping remained common. Many persons from the States
had bought "claims" whose location was a mystery
to all but God. Many in the great mass of people that made
Nome a city "stand with empty pockets." Nordvesten
quoted O. Ellingson of St. Paul, who had just returned from
Nome, as reporting that most of the gold up there had been
taken, and that hundreds of gold-seekers would die of hunger
if the government did not bring them home. Washington Posten
published a long and interesting description of the Nome area
written by C. M. Thuland. It pointed to the shortage of water
for the mines on Anvil, Dexter, Snow Gulch, and Glacier creeks,
where people were waiting for the rains that might give them
employment and a chance to earn money enough to pay their
passage home. Along the beach, one could still wash out about
$5.00 a day in gold. Despite all its problems, in 1901 Nome
would be a lively mining town of about 3,000 people; there
really was not room for more, he said. By the next spring,
pending litigation would be disposed of, new claims [176]
would be made, and there would be water for the mines, as
a pumping station would be constructed in the mountains to
supply the creeks. {47}

Kjellman, still in Wisconsin, provided Amerika with thoughtful
accounts of the situation in Alaska in late summer, 1900,
correcting mistaken and exaggerated statements in the American
newspapers. The winter postal service had been irregular in
the interior of Alaska: he reported, but a great improvement
had resulted from the work of Norwegians in the service. Johan
P. Johannesen (Skalogare), who had gone to Alaska in Kjellman's
last expedition and who had previously carried mail across
Finnmark, had delivered it on skis during the past winter
from Eaton on Norton Sound to Kotzebue Sound. Another man,
a Lapp, had brought mail by reindeer from St. Michael via
Eaton, Golovnin Bay, and Council City to Nome, bringing dependability
into the service and winning high praise.

In a later report Kjellman quoted the Cape Nome Gold Digger
as saying that, in all, gold to the value of $15,000,000 would
be sent out of Nome; Kjellman thought that, for 1900, $10,000,000
would be closer to the truth. The feeling was growing in Nome
that the problem of how to continue mining operations in winter
would soon be overcome, to the benefit of owners and workers
alike. Eskimo, sick with diseases brought by whites, had been
taken to Nome for medical care, and some people thought that
the natives should be set apart from gold-seekers on a reservation,
a plan Kjellman approved. {48}

When the government transport Lawton returned from Nome in
August, 1900, it carried 150 gold-seekers "without a
red cent" and twenty-six Lapps on their way to Norway.
The Lapps, who were tired of life in Alaska, would be accompanied
home by Sheldon Jackson; about eighty, who were well satisfied
with their [177] reindeer culture and some of whom had made
rich gold finds, remained in the North. Skandinaven in September
of the same year printed a long interview with a Norwegian
from Stoughton, Wisconsin, who had toured Cape Nome and Cape
York during the summer. He gave a balanced evaluation of conditions
there but advised against rash migration to Alaska. Another
man spoke of "disappointment on top of disappointment."
{49}

The newspapers naturally followed closely and gave full publicity
to news from the Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
In October, 1900, Washington Posten reported the arrest of
McKenzie. He had so often, according to Posten "'greased
his stockings' at the expense of Norwegian farmers in North
Dakota, that he was happy to reap a rich harvest in Nome."
The newspaper then recounted the whole sordid story and correctly
stated that the only justification for the robbery was the
fact that a few of the Scandinavian mineowners were not yet
citizens of the United States. The jumpers knew that only
a law passed by Congress could legalize their actions, and
they had found the man to do this in McKenzie, "who had
done the political bidding of James Hill in North Dakota,
had thwarted M. N. Johnson when he tried to run for the Senate
and got Hansbrough elected in his place, had begun his public
life as a United States marshal and in time became one of
the receivers for the Northern Pacific Railway as a reward
for his services."

The account continued: "Unfortunately for McKenzie and
his gang, some of the Lapps had sold their claims to Charles
D. Lane, treasurer of the national Free Silver Committee,
and among his close friends in the Senate were some who immediately
saw what Hansbrough had in mind." Knute Nelson, too,
had struck a blow for his countrymen in all of Alaska, and
his clear presentation of the case in the Senate influenced
others in their favor. [178] Lindeberg, Brynteson, and Lindblom
had their mines again and would also get back their gold,
"but for them it has been a costly affair." Nome
had had little sickness during the past summer, thanks to
Lindeberg, R. T. Lyng, a Swede, Thoralf and Magnus Kjeldsberg,
and other Norwegians, who had brought spring water to town
from Anvil Mountain. Also, a hospital had been built in Nome,
paid for by Lindeberg, Brynteson, and Lindblom.

Both Norwegians and Lapps, Washington Posten stated, were
dissatisfied with the treatment they had received on the most
recent reindeer expedition. "They were treated like dogs
and received wretched food. A complaint was sent to the Swedish-Norwegian
minister in Washington, who gave it to the Department of the
Interior, where it went into the wastebasket." The contract
with the United States government had given the parties a
period of six months within which they might terminate their
agreement. Many in the expedition had taken advantage of this
right, but when they came to Sheldon Jackson for settlement,
they had to "bite into the sour apple." The contract
also stated that the Lapps should have free clothing. They
were enjoined to buy clothes in Norway at the cheapest possible
prices, and assured that the government would repay them.
When the time came to settle for the clothing, the Lapps were
credited for the amount they had paid out in Norway, but Jackson
had debited them for the clothes they had been wearing for
half a year -- at Klondike prices!

The petition to the Swedish-Norwegian minister, reprinted
in Washington Posten, quoted the assurance in the contract
that the reindeer people would have "good and safe food"
as well as clothes. They claimed they did not receive it and,
"because of this," the protest stated, "many
have been sick." In Port Townsend, Washington, the government
had told them that they would [179] obtain at the station
all things not included in rations at the same prices they
cost at Port Townsend, but this promise was not kept. Nothing
had come of their complaints. "Many have sought their
release, and all of us are more or less unhappily silenced
as inexperienced strangers in a strange land." Returning
to the food problem, the petition said: "We think that
the total lack of berries or dried fruit during the entire
winter has been in part the cause of all our sickness."
It also expressed the hope that the American people, who,
they were told, fought for those who were hungry and oppressed,
"would also grant justice to us who are having trouble
in the service of that people." The petition was signed
by twenty-six of the Norwegians and witnessed by J. Werner
Sverdrup and Thomas Rudd. {50}

When the returning Lapps stopped off in Minneapolis, attracting
considerable attention, a reporter from Nordvesten interviewed
them. The spokesman for the group, Jacob Larson Hatta, was
of the opinion that Alaska would not turn out to be a good
place for raising reindeer, in part because of its unfavorable
climate but also because its moss was of too poor a quality
to sustain the animals. Nordvesten also commented editorially
on the matter. At Port Hope, where Hatta had delivered some
deer, a bitter wind blew constantly, whereas in Finnmark it
did not, and the moss was covered by snow. The reindeer almost
froze where he was; within a few years they might adjust to
the climate, but they would never thrive as in Norway. {51}
E. M. Cederbergh, writing to Skandinaven in June, 1901, saw
a great future for Alaska and gold production, which he thought
was only in its infancy. Anvil Creek was a mere beginning.
Thus far placer mining and sluice boxes had dominated the
story, but now it was clear that gold quartz would have its
day. Machinery would be brought in the next summer for hydraulic
use. [180] He was less optimistic about Alaska about growing
crops, but he pointed to places, on Golovnin Bay and Norton
Sound, where vegetables could be raised, and of course there
was forest in abundance. Reindeer, he insisted, did well in
the country. The governor was reported as favoring populating
Alaska with Scandinavians. Tundra was similar to Norwegian
peat and could be used as fuel -- an attractive prospect where
coal cost $75 per ton and wood was $40 per cord. G. J. Lomen
had written to a newspaper in Kristiania asking for information
about processing the tundra. He reported that the Eskimo population
was dying out because of white man's food. Prices generally
were lower, Nome enjoyed excellent water supplied by the Nome
Water Company, which was largely owned by Scandinavians, and
there was ample social life in the city. Cederbergh concluded
by urging persons coming to Alaska to have money enough with
them to live on for a time -- and for a return ticket. {52}

On August 16, 1901, C. M. Thuland wrote to Washington Posten
to report an extraordinary meeting of the legal profession
in Nome. They had decided unanimously on the previous day
to send a resolution to President McKinley by telegraph from
Seattle requesting the dismissal of Arthur H. Noyes and the
appointment of a fair, honest, and capable judge. They accused
Noyes of being incapable, vacillating, weak, partisan, and
careless. The telegram was signed by all the lawyers in Nome,
except for a few who had been appointed commissioners or clerks
and who therefore could not have been practicing law. The
resolution was a mild expression of what 99 percent of the
people thought of the judge. Noyes had left Nome without giving
even a couple of hours' notice. Claim-jumping continued. Things
had been bad before; they were worse now. It was likely that
the mineowners and townsfolk would organize [181] a vigilance
committee that would also serve as a court of conciliation,
as they expected no help from the government. "Up on
Ivan Creek the miners have joined together, and if a jumper
tries to take a claim, word is sent to all and they meet at
the disputed claim to throw the jumper off. This is easier
and cheaper and possibly more just than to appeal to the federal
law and Noyes." {53}

Of great interest to the reader must have been Thuland's
statement in October, 1901, that a lawsuit had begun as a
result of disturbances on Glacier Creek. About sixty masked
and armed men had attacked the workers there the month before
and seriously wounded one person. The aggressors in this attack
were Lindeberg and Lane people, and among the leaders were
Lindeberg and G. W. Price, Lane's brother-in-law. When the
grand jury met and began to investigate the action, Lindeberg,
Price, and several other leaders had left Nome, and charges
had been filed against them and warrants were in the hands
of the federal marshal. A week later Thuland reported more
specifically about the affair. Preliminary hearings had been
held against J. W. Griffin and J. T. Price, two of these arrested
who, on August 14, had driven claim-jumpers from the California
Fraction on Glacier. The jury was divided and new preliminary
hearings were to be held later. {54}

A news item from Washington, D.C., on January '23, 1909,,
reported that Attorney General P. C. Knox, after a talk with
the President, had stated that, regardless of any action to
the contrary by the Department of Justice, Noyes would not
be invited to refill the bench he had left in Nome. Skandinaven
reported in detail that President Theodore Roosevelt had sent
a letter to Noyes removing him from office. The newspaper
also stated that Knox had studied the whole Nome scandal thoroughly,
had publicly branded Noyes's actions as shameful, and [182]
had listed and denounced them one by one. In March the newspaper
printed an announcement that the Pioneer Mining Company, following
the dissolution of the Lindeberg, Brynteson, and Lindblom
organization, would now give the public an opportunity to
buy stock in the reorganized company and share in the profits
of the rich placer gold fields at Nome. The company would
sell shares with par value of $1.00 for 50¢ apiece. The
advertisement maintained that $2,463,705.10 in gold had been
taken on less than ten percent of the area owned by the company
in the preceding three years. This statement, it said, had
been verified by banks. {55}

Skandinaven then recounted the whole story of the attempted
gold steal in Nome, as told by the San Francisco court, and
accompanied its long article with an editorial on the "black
conspiracy," which it said had broad ramifications. Alexander
McKenzie had been the "controlling force" in North
Dakota polities for years; "he had made, or unmade, United
States senators, governors, and other public officials whom
he eared to control .... Fortunately, the cause of justice
has equally determined champions in the Senate, chief among
them senators Nelson, Spooner, and Stewart."

Skandinaven followed this editorial the next month with another
on the Nome judiciary. Numerous letters the newspaper received
from northwestern and western states, the editorial stated,
disclosed a lively interest in the pending appointment of
judge and clerk of court for the Nome district. "Our
enterprising and hardy young men are beginning to realize
the magnificent possibilities of the vast territory. They
are eager to contribute to its development and are ready to
face the hardships of arctic winters if they can be assured
of an honest enforcement of the laws by the federal courts.
Such assurance is entirely lacking at present." But Skandinaven
thought President Roosevelt, who was [183] familiar with affairs
in Alaska, could be trusted to make the right appointment
to the court. The newspaper thought George N. Borchsenius
of Madison, Wisconsin, a fine person for clerk of court, as
he had stood firmly opposed to the corruption in Nome as clerk
under Noyes. But for him, the crimes would have been even
more numerous and shameful. He would have the vigorous support
of senators Spooner and Nelson. {56}

C. M. Thuland usually included references to mining activities
in his frequent letters to Washington Posten. His own Bench
Claim No. 4 on Specimen Gulch was prospected during the winter
and yielded paying gravel. The Pioneer Mining Company was
washing on No. 1 Anvil, with good results. The Reverend P.
H. Anderson, a Swedish missionary, was being sued for $400,000.
The case concerned No. 9 Anvil Creek, which Anderson had held
and worked since the fall of 1898. The charge against him
was that he had cheated two Eskimo, Constantine Uparazuck
and Gabriel Adams, of their title to the mine. Adams died
in 1900 and Uparazuck and K. Hendricksen were administrators
of his estate. Erik O. Lindblom had staked No. 9 for Adams
and No. 8 for Uparazuck; both natives were members of the
Swedish Covenant mission congregation at Chivik. A month later,
Thuland reported, Anderson had taken it on himself to function
for the Eskimo, as he had heard that natives could not hold
mine claims in Alaska. He had joined with G. W. Price to reclaim
No. 8 and with R. L. Price to reclaim No. 9. R. L. Price had
later surrendered his right to claim 9 to Anderson, "to
hold and keep in trust for Gabriel Adams." Anderson had
told the Eskimo that they could not have mining claims and
that he would hold this claim for them. They believed him.
All that the natives had received to date from Anderson was
$400, but gold in the amount of $400,000 had been taken from
the mine, the richest on Anvil. Thuland and [184] T. M. Reed,
serving as lawyers for the Eskimo, were requesting that the
claim be returned to the Eskimo and their heirs and that Pastor
Anderson return to them the value of the gold that had been
removed. {57}

In July, 1902, the steamer Kimball arrived in Nome from Seattle.
Among its passengers were Alfred A. Moore, the newly appointed
district judge, G. N. Borchsenius, reappointed clerk of court,
and B. E. Rogers, also of Madison, Wisconsin, who would hold
a position in the court. The ship also carried E. M. Cederbergh.
In Madison Borehsenius had organized the Arctic Gold Mining
Company; he was said to be part or sole owner of about 100
gold claims in Alaska. Borchsenius' return was warmly received
and better days were anticipated by the Nome Gold-Digger.
{58}

William A. Kjellman stopped off in Madison on his way to
Chicago after a long rest at his home in Mount Horeb. Now
full of energy, he wrote to Amerika, he had new plans for
Alaska that had little to do with gold. He spoke of Norway
and Alaska as if they were neighbors, for he saw a striking
resemblance between the two countries in geography, economy,
and future development. {59}

Disputes over gold continued late in 1902 to put Nome in
the news. Washington Posten stated that in San Francisco Thomas
J. Duffy, a mine operator in Nome, had begun a suit against
Jafet Lindeberg for $900,000. Duffy charged that Lindeberg
had jumped valuable claims belonging to him and had taken
gold out of the mines in the amount he was being sued for.
The newspaper continued to report on arrivals from Nome and
their success in the gold fields. {60} In March and April
of 1903, it printed a series of wide-ranging articles about
Alaska -- the land of the future.

By 1904, Nome occupied a less prominent place in the columns
of the Norwegian-American press. But [185] Skandinaven printed
an article from the Minneapolis Journal about Knute Nelson's
six bills for Alaska. These provided for a second judge and
another judicial district, construction and maintenance of
wagon roads, establishment of schools, care of the insane
and destitute, codification of laws pertaining to municipalities,
election of a delegate to the House of Representatives, changes
in the criminal code, and construction of a bridge across
the Snake River at Nome. His bills were tangible results of
a visit of senators to Alaska in the summer of 1903. {61}

Skandinaven had followed with interest the activities of
E. M. Cederbergh and in fact had first learned the real facts
about the Nome gold fields from him when he visited Chicago.
In May, 1904, the newspaper announced that he was leaving
for Alaska after having spent a period of about five months
in Chicago. He had been about three years in Alaska as director
of a New York firm, then had come to Chicago on the invitation
of friends who requested that he buy claims for them on the
Seward Peninsula. The result had been Cederbergh's leadership
in organizing the Good Hope Bay Mining Company, of which he
was president. He was optimistic about Alaska and thought
the Seward Peninsula the richest mineral district in the world.
According to the article, many Chicago Scandinavians had invested
in his company. {62}

V

Life went on at Teller and the other reindeer stations despite
the more dramatic events at Nome and the departure of superintendents
and Lapps for the gold fields. The Reverend T. L. Brevig,
who had left Alaska in 1898 and had been in the States on
leave since then, returned to his mission in the summer of
1900. Seeking support from the Norwegian Synod and from friends
[186] while in the States, he had received a little more than
$900 from the church and was hoping for $1,000 per year from
it in the future. As Nordvesten put it, he had real need for
this money, since he intended to start a day school for Eskimo
children as well as continue work with Lapp families and gold-seekers.
With him when he left the Midwest in late May was A. Hovig,
a young man who would assist him in his many activities.

How isolated Brevig was at Port Clarence is indicated by
the fact that he received mail twice a month during the summer
and at best once in winter, by an overland route. He was grateful
for the help given him by friends, but cautioned them to send
money, as supplies sometimes arrived at ports in the States
too late to catch cargo ships and, as a result, lay over until
the next year. Money was being used in Alaska, and so cash
gilts could be sent to the Norwegian Synod's treasurer, who
would see to their delivery; it was also possible now to send
registered letters to the new post office, where he was serving
as postmaster. {63}

When Brevig arrived at his mission on June 30, he found its
buildings basically as he had left them, but in terrible disorder
after their use by mine workers. Teller, the town, had been
laid out two miles from the station, and people were streaming
into it. The creeks nearby were promising. The schooner Cosca
arrived about ten days later and included among its passengers
a Lapp family who would serve as reindeer caretakers. The
station had received an additional 100 deer, all lively and
in good health, but Teller was no longer the chief center
for the reindeer industry. {64}

In the late spring of 1900 Theodor Lindseth of Benicia, California,
left Seattle on the Cosca to take over direction of the reindeer
station at Yacucatta, where Kjellman formerly had been in
charge. He had been employed by the Department of Agriculture.
Lindseth [187] was born in northern Norway and had known and
worked with Lapps. {65}

When Brevig wrote in the winter, he reported that things
were going well at the station; everyone was cheerful and
healthy. The Eskimo children ate heartily and played; the
young men worked every day with enthusiasm, and at the moment
were occupied with the woodpile. There had been no hunger
among the Eskimo, as the tomcod, a small fish that often came
close to the shore, had been available in abundance during
the fall. Later in winter the fish had gone away for a while,
causing the first food shortage. Some of the natives now lived
around Teller and had become acquainted with liquor. "I
have been able to get some of them to settle on a point of
land west of the station where they are on their own, and
they get help where it is needed. I heard yesterday that up
on the Govirok River 65 miles to the east there were 24 parentless
children who were supported by a young Eskimo and his mother.
The need was great. Travel has been such that we have been
unable to get up there to investigate. We are now so many
at the station that we can't take in more, but we will send
up food and clothing as soon as we have the opportunity. In
the town of Teller the supply of provisions is small, and
so at present it is almost impossible to buy anything there.
Coal is $160 a ton but unavailable. Many are seeking to leave
for Nome, as food is cheaper there. Many here have nothing
to eat except the fish they can catch. Reports of gold one
hears everywhere, but these are surely only rumors."
{66}

Husbibliothek, a literary supplement to Skandinaven, published
an article in November, 1901, on the Lapp women in Alaska.
It revealed that there were about a dozen reindeer stations
in the territory and that more would be started. It also ran
a picture of a Lapp woman in traditional attire at Eaton,
then the main [188] station. She carried a baby on her back
in a cradle hand-carved from a log and held in place by a
strap. The Lapp women played a vital role in training the
Eskimo in the reindeer culture. They taught the natives how
to make clothes from skins and butter and cheese from milk,
and how to cook and dry reindeer meat. Eskimo women gathered
at the various stations, often coming from a distance of 100
miles or more, to receive instruction. {67}

Brevig, whose story is closely involved with Lapps, Eskimo,
and reindeer, seemed proudest of his work in starting a home
for children at the Teller station, the most northerly institution
of its kind in North America. In a long letter to Amerika
written in October, 1901, he explained that the children in
it were Eskimo or of mixed Eskimo and white origin, the latter
usually deserted or otherwise parentless. He gave the names
of fourteen children, with explanations of the meaning of
these names, and added to his list five adult natives who
were reindeer herders. These had all been taken in at the
station after his return to Alaska and were attached to his
home.

Brevig also wrote about fourteen Eskimo who had obtained
their reindeer before he left Teller in 1898 and who owned
from 75 to 160 animals each. They supported themselves but
were under the leadership of the mission, and they received
from it and the government whatever they required as payment
for their services. This arrangement, Brevig explained, was
necessary to protect the Eskimo from exploitation.. All their
business was handled for them by the mission. He also named
three Lapps, two young men and a woman, who were given food
and clothing by the mission and were paid by the government.
Alfred Nilima, one of the Lapps, would soon take a herd of
about 200 reindeer to the Quaker mission on Kotzebue Sound.
Brevig's own family numbered five. In addition, there were
Hovig and Lucalia [189] Krukoff, a single lady, both of whom
had been with his family from Wisconsin -- a total of forty-three
persons who gathered together on Sundays, with the exception
of one or two who tended the deer. They were joined by people
living near the mission and by some from islands in the Bering
Strait and from East Cape, Siberia.

When a child or an adult came to the mission to be supported
there, the first step in the admission process was a warm
bath, then clean clothes from tip to toe. Next, the hair was
cut and the head treated with paraffin to keep uninvited guests
away. Clothes soaked with blubber were burned, but otherwise
serviceable garments were put in sacks until they could be
used away from the station or when the newcomer left The children
were cooperative and easy to work with. The half-breeds, he
wrote, were more stubborn and willful than the Eskimo. The
government was giving no help that year, but Captain F. Tuttle
of the Bear had put ashore some flour and General Randall
had sent in the same boat flour, bacon, and "ship's bread"
from his own supply. The mission now had 160 reindeer, of
which number it owned 60; 100 would have to be returned in
four years, but the mission would keep the natural increase
and would have temporary use of the animals it would later
return.

More children wished to come to the home, but there was no
room for them, and cost prohibited enlargement of the place.
Everything would depend on the support that friends would
give the home. He did not know how much money had come in
for the mission, as he had received no report from the Synod
since his return to Alaska. Brevig wrote an eloquent appeal
for help, but made it in terms of the Eskimo, who should be
aided in defending themselves, largely against the rapidly
increasing white population. The mission was a secure place
for the natives. Widows with their children and [190] grown
daughters came to it to escape the unwelcome attentions of
all kinds of men. Many of the problems faced by the Eskimo
had been created by whites in the past several years, and
those who cared would have to act soon or it would be too
late. {68}

At a later date, Mrs. Julia M. Brevig was interviewed in
Stanwood, Washington, about the mission at Teller. She used
stronger words than her husband in discussing the gold-seekers
in Alaska. She answered her own question, whether or not the
successful ones visited the children's home and contributed
to its work, with these words: "Far from it. The lucky
ones have never been of any joy or advantage to us or our
work .... But trouble we have had, and I can say pleasure
in a certain sense, as it is a pleasure to give food to the
hungry." {69}

Earlier, Mrs. Brevig had written from Teller welcoming the
arrival of an early spring and announcing that the children
at the home had come through the winter without illness, the
great trial of other years. All the same she and her husband
were eager to have a separate room for the sick, and hoped
that funds for it could be raised. No new parentless children
had come to the home since the previous fall until a month
ago, when Brevig went up to Cape Prince of Wales and returned
with four little boys and a girl. When the girl had been with
them for two weeks, she ran away to the town of Teller and
there found refuge in a house of ill repute. Brevig and one
of the young men at the station had gone after her and talked
with her, but she had refused to return. Brevig then spoke
with the local judge, who brought her back to the mission.
Next day she was taken overland to Cape Prince of Wales by
a herder; there she was turned over to a missionary.

Since the arrival of miners in the area, according to Mrs.
Brevig, the shameful influence of whites had increased greatly;
young Eskimo girls suffered especially [191] from it. If those
who supported the mission only knew of its work during the
past three years, she believed they would rejoice indeed.
The last mail had brought the good news that something would
be done for the mission by friends. They had often been discouraged;
Brevig had written a number of times to the Reverend U. V.
Koren, president of the Synod, for help, but had not yet received
a reply. Mrs. Brevig had suffered during the winter from a
heart ailment and her husband had said she must not spend
another winter in Alaska. The young men had traveled with
sleds and deer during the past week bringing in fuel; the
animals were tired and had to rest, as good wood was found
only far away. She had taken all the children for a sleigh
ride and picnic in Teller; this treat was repeated each year
in the spring. A person with a camera had been out on the
ice and taken pictures of the "Santa Claus children."
{70}

Brevig returned to the States in 1903 and went back to Teller
on the Charles Nelson in June, 1904. With him were an Eskimo
boy and Ludvig Larsen, who would take over his position at
the station. Also on the ship were Olaus Alseth and Oscar
Finley, who would erect schoolhouses for the government at
Cape Prince of Wales and St. Michael. On August 8 Brevig joyfully
reported that on the preceding day he had baptized 19 Eskimo
-- 5 adults and 14 children aged 6 to 15. {71}

Although reindeer were not the main interest of the churches,
the story of the reindeer in Alaska was closely interwoven
with that of the Christian missions in the territory, as Sheldon
Jackson, the moving three in introducing them to the Eskimo,
liked to point out. Skandinaven as early as 1902 editorially
supported his claim that in a short time reindeer would become
the chief means of travel between Alaska and the outer world.
They were already in service in moving mail in winter, and
many mineowners used them to carry supplies to [192] the claims.
The Congregational mission on Bering Strait had a herd of
1,000 animals. Jackson said there were about 4,100 deer in
the territory and that the annual increase was between 30
and 40 percent. About 4,500 animals had been born in Alaska
since the reindeer were first brought in in 1892. The government
was lending them out both to the missions and to private persons
five-year periods. Deer were better for travel than dogs,
because of the necessity of carrying heavy and expensive food
for the dogs and buying more along the way on trips longer
than a week. Reindeer, on the other hand, could go anywhere
with a pack of 200 pounds on their backs or pull a sleigh
with a 300-pound load -- and find their own food along the
way. {72}

For some time reindeer were to play a vital part in the lives
of the Eskimo. The herds around the stations at Port Clarence,
Golovin, Eaton, and Wales grew in number to at least a half
million by 1930. The Eskimo owned about 70 percent of them,
to a value of about $1,000,000. According to C. L. Andrews,
the deer sustained from 5,000 to 10,000 natives and supplied
them with virtually all necessities. Management of the herds
was transferred from the Office of Education to the governor
of Alaska in 1929, and in 1937 the service was placed under
the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The reindeer industry was later
taken from the Eskimo and given over to white owners. The
number of animals declined after 1940. {73}